Real Life Math

being late to dinner with your in-laws
+
the XM radio game*
+
a road you drive twice a day
+
cresting a steep hill
+
a heavy car that builds momentum as it goes downhill
=
the first speeding ticket I have gotten since I was 16



*The XM Radio Game (for those who are curious)
The passenger is in charge of the XM controller, scrolling through the channels looking for a band that the driver might be able to recognize. The song doesn't matter, although the game is MUCH easier if it is a well-known song. The driver attempts to identify the musician (or group of musicians). If the driver is unable to do so, the passenger can supply hints.

Popular category hints include:
synonyms (e.g. Third Eye Blind becomes Unseeing Chakra)
word association (e.g. Good Charlotte becomes Some Pig in reference to Charlotte's Web)
factoids (e.g. Aerosmith becomes Alicia Silverstone because she once acted in a music video of theirs)
initials (e.g. Three Doors Down = TDD)
number of words (e.g. I think you can figure this one out on your own.)
personal preference (e.g. Mikey knows that if I am picking something country for him to identify it is going to be one of a select few people because he has a limited knowledge of country. Same goes for me and grunge or hair metal.)

Extra points are awarded for speed of recognition (we each have a couple of bands that we can recognize from the first riff of a song) or obscurity of the song (guessing the band from their top 40 hit is less impressive than identifying them from some B side song that you've never heard before). Of course, the fewer clues you need, the better.

Honestly, the clues are the real fun of the game. We try to make up clues with multiple layers so that the driver really has to figure them out to make their guess. One of the more convoluted clues we've created:
Santana becomes Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars is a television show written by a guy named Rob Thomas who is of no relation to the Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 who once did a song with Santana.
This clue was for Mikey. I would recognize Santana right away. :)

The game is lots of fun, and it's how we spend most of our drive time when we're together. Just one warning if you become a player - be careful not to focus so much on the sound of the musician you're trying to guess that you forget to watch your speed. You'll end up like me, spending the first day of your vacation trying to get through to someone at your county court to find out how much it's going to cost you to go to traffic school.